SAM Global Report 2018 – Findings:

I’m not going to spoil the details within the report here! But one of the more recent questions we added was to ask participants which SAM tool (if any) they currently have in place. Some interesting analysis follows as we can start to compare process maturity against the existing technology applied to SAM. A point to note here: merely because SAM Suite A or B has been chosen, does not mean that you will be any further ahead on SAM maturity if you had chosen product C or D. It is the application of your SAM experience with that technology that will result in a higher score.

Remember: No software vendor audit has ever been stopped because a specific technology producing ELPs was found to be installed on a customer’s IT estate.

One of the advantages of maintaining the same question-bank as from when the first report was produced, was that we could also offer a relative comparison of SAM maturity from 2016 vs. 2018. As before, caution should be taken in drawing a direct comparison between the results, as the participants in 2018 differed from those taking the assessment in 2016. What we can deduce though, is that companies are entering into SAM at a slightly more advanced stage than they were two years ago.

We have also included sector, size and nationality break downs of the SAM maturity data. As ever, no individuals or companies were named/ harmed(!) in the production of this report.

Aside from offering a valuable insight as to where the maturity needle is pointing to in the marketplace, I would highly recommend you taking your own instance of the light assessment, so that you can see how you compare against organisations of your sector, size and nationality.

Rory has a wide range of first-hand experience advising numerous companies and organisations on the best practices and principles pertaining to software asset management. This experience has been gained in both military and civil organisations, including the Royal Navy, Compaq, HP, the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and several software vendors.